27.01.22 Community

Community Climate Action Project update

The climate action we take as individuals and households is critically important. And the actions of businesses and organisations too. But we can’t solve the climate crisis without community.

In Bristol, community has been key to so much the city has achieved. It’s people working together that makes real change happen. With community we can achieve great things. And by communities we mean all types of community.

The Community Climate Action Project puts communities at the heart of fast and fair climate action in Bristol. It’s been a busy time for the project over the last few months, so here are a few highlights we’d like to share…..

Festival of the Future City – how can communities lead climate action?

Back in October we were delighted to be able to share our collective reflections on community-led climate action at an in-person event at the Watershed as part of the biannual Festival of the Future City. Though a series of presentations and a panel discussion involving all the project partners, we explored the question – how can communities lead climate action? You can watch the full recording of the event. How Can Communities Lead Climate Action? (Festival of the Future City)

Bristol Climate Hub – new communities section

October also saw the launch of a new community section of the Bristol Climate Hub – Bristol City Council’s one stop shop website for supporting climate action – as part of the Community Climate Action project. This will help share learning and resources developed during the project through a range of community action cards and community climate hero stories, that will expand over time to help support and inspire other communities on their climate action journey.

Peer review roundtable event

By November the community partners had developed draft versions of their Community Climate Action plans. To help refine the priorities emerging from these plans, the Partnership hosted a dynamic peer review event with over 50 climate sector experts. Each community partner shared their initial community priorities across a range of themes: energy, transport, waste, food, nature, housing/buildings and economy/jobs/education with groups of peer reviewers who were expert in each of the themes.

Hosting this event in-person generated detailed feedback from a supportive group of experts from the public, charity and private sectors, which provided invaluable insight and advice to community partners, as well as helping to develop relationships and collaborations which will be critical to implementation of their priorities.

This roundtable event was followed by a ‘speed dating’ event with strategic leads from Bristol City Council and peer reviewing of the plans by members of the Bristol Advisory Committee on Climate Change. This collective support from climate stakeholders across the city, is invaluable in the refinement of the community climate action plans ahead of their launch.

Creative Commissions – using creativity to widen the climate conversation

In December we ran a social media campaign to celebrate and share the engaging suite of outputs from our two creative commissions. During May – October 2021 we collaborated with three local artists on two climate themed commissions with the aspiration of using creativity to connect more, and more diverse people with the climate conversation in Bristol. Read more about the creative commissions and watch the playlist of climate craftivism films and animated memes on our Youtube channel.

Community climate action plans

The six coproduced community climate action plans are now almost completed. They are comprehensive, strategic documents that set out each community’s climate action priorities across seven themes. The plans respond to the specific needs identified by each community – via an in-depth process of community engagement – and focus on achieving both carbon and community cobenefits. Each plan is unique and bespoke to it specific community whilst aligning with strategic Bristol plans such as the One City Climate Strategy. Shorter, more accessible ‘community summary’ versions of each plan are currently being developed by the community partners and both will be officially launched in early March 2022.